3rd Qtr 2013 Citi AAdvantage Reduced Mileage Awards Are Out!

I’ve been checking the Citi AAdvantage reduced mileage awards to see when they would be updated and noticed that 3rd quarter is out and they are now offering one way awards! Before you were only able to book a round trip to/from the specified destination. Another thing that has changed is that the cities change each month where as before it was the same cities for the whole quarter.

So what are reduced mileage awards? If you have one of the 8 Citi AAdvantage Credit Cards listed on the site, you are able to book a mileage saver award at an even more reduced price for both economy and first class. The flight must be to/from the listed cities. This is a savings of 7,500 miles for a round trip flight! See below:

To make a reservation call this number 1.800.882.8880 and have the flight and award code ready.There is a $25 fee to book the award which is waived for exec platinum. Remember that in order to book a reduced mileage saver award, the flight has to already be a mileage saver which looks like the below:

There are a lot of city choices and I will go over more in detail later this week. Start booking!

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Uh, what am I missing here? From the AA/Citi reduced mileage announcement: “the flight has to already be a mileage saver which looks like the below:” There is nothing below, except two do-nothing buttons, which just re-display the button itself.

Anyway, I’m a newbie here — came looking for any comments on AA’s mileage/upgrade policies. My frequent-flyer days are long over, but I still do an annual JFK/EZE trip, continuing on AR to Ushuaia to do some lectures on a cruise ship. So, in past years I’ve never had a problem getting an upgrade to business class. This year, forget about it. No upgrades available on any flight on any day close to my travel dates. Seems to me that AAdvantage miles are now pretty close to useless. Just wondered if any other non-frequent flyers had similar experiences.

That’s weird — I see the two buttons (12.5K and 25K), followed by a “There are a lot of city choices (etc.)” line, but nothing else. I haven’t tried the “free oneways” program, but if it works (that is, doesn’t work) like the international “upgrades not available” program, then it too isn’t of much value.

John, you’ve come to a good resource to find value in AA miles. Giddy for Points is an excellent resource. Spending just a little more time on good sites will help you see how valuable AA miles really are.

In terms of value, I know that you can book award travel to Europe for 40k round trip during off peak season in economy which is great considering the cost of flights, but since you seem to be more interested in Upper Class, you may not see value in this.

It seems to me that it may be beneficial to go through an award booking service to find the best way to redeem all those miles since they will try to get you the travel you are interested in for the fewest miles that they can. I hope this info helps.

In Giddy’s June 13 reply: “If its upgrades you want, AA allows upgrades using miles for tickets purchased.”

That’s exactly what I’ve been doing for years. And it’s always worked. But not this year. For my upcoming JFK/EZE and EZE/MIA/JFK flights, no upgrades are available on any flight, on any day. And this, despite the fact that of some 37 seats, more than 30 are still empty. Seems to me that AA has tightened its policy, and accumulated miles are now pretty close to useless unless you’re a very frequent flyer.

I’d love to know how many miles Citi Card bought for that obscene amount of money they paid to AA. Then I’d know the dollar value of each mile. So, I have ballpark 110,000 miles in my account. To get an upgrade on my r/t JFK/EZE flights, I need to pay for an economy ticket, plus $700 co-pay, plus whatever the value is for 50,000 mileage points. No doubt that’s lower than a straight biz-class ticket, but how much lower? The difference is what AA might make by not honoring its commitment in hopes of selling the seat to someone else for full price. Oh well, so much for customer loyalty.

I’m going to be critical here. If you want to add value – provide a chart of the decreased awards and by how much, AA shows a lot of cities based on regions that have discounts. Besides, American has clearly changed their discounts by Month not Quarter.